Saturday, April 30, 2011

A recent global television advert from Asiana Airlines, remarkably similar to the worldwide campaign of its archrival, Korean Air, which was shown in the previous post. Here, the aircraft is nowhere, it is only the traveler and the intercontinental capitals, linked by an endless silk carpet, in the colors of Asiana Airlines.

A delightful video advert from Korean Air, released in the autumn of 2010 worldwide. Immaculate models, made giant, waft through global landscapes both serene and pulsing, from the beaches of Australia's Gold Coast to the hyperfuturistic hub at Incheon. A woman reposes on the limestone islands of Halong. Another playfully pole-dances around the Pearl Orient Tower of Shanghai. The reflecting pool at the Taj Mahal becomes a runway (in terms of fashion, not aviation). Seoul's Banpo Bridge becomes a balance beam. Hong Kong's Central Plaza because a full-length make-up mirror. Mount Cook becomes a chaise-lounge.

What is curious about this item is that Air Asia X neither serves these routes at present, nor does trusty Wikipedia confirm this web of destinations as either present or erstwhile, in its index. Its not entirely clear whether these routes has been announced or planned, or if this is just wishful thinking. Milan and Budapest, Paris, and Christchurch have all been announced or active since 2010, but are not shown here.

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Still diving through the incredible collection of Flickr user caribb. Here is a late Iron-curtain era handbook of ČSA Ceskoslovenske Aeroline, Czechoslovakia's state carrier, as its quad-engined IL-62 superjets roared across the Atlantic on Thursdays for the more democratic destinations of Montreal's Mirabel airport in Canada, which turned south to New York's JFK. Twice a week, OK578 spewed exhaust southward to arrive the next day at the socialist-tropical paradise of Cuba. If those two operations weren't convenient enough, on Sunday a Cubana IL-62 made the Prague-Havana run.

Note that Y class only was provided. A connecting service to Toronto and New York via Air Canada is helpfully included.

The top table appears to offer a feeder service from Budapest, Milan and Paris into these intercontinental services.

Timetablist would like to thank caribb (Doug from Montreal) for generously allowing the reuse of these images under creative commons license terms.

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Another detail from UTA's worldwide map from 1989, part of Flickr user caribb's collection. Even thought France didn't have any colonies in the southern half of the continent, and there isn't a francophone city between Kinshasa and Antananarivo, UTA flew to a number of southern African capitals where no French airline flies today. Libreville, Brazzaville, Kinshasa are no surprise (and are still connected to Paris), and Luanda and Johannesburg have economic reasons for still being served from CDG, but anglophone Lilongwe, Lusaka, Gaborone, Windhoek and lusophone Maputo are surprising.

Timetablist would like to thank caribb (Doug from Montreal) for generously allowing the reuse of these images under creative commons license terms.

A detail from the previous post, from Flickr user caribb's collection, showing the huge number of African destinations, which Air France didn't bother with.

Timetablist will be dedicating an intermediate period going forward to highlight some of the incredible finds of Flickr user caribb's collection. Timetablist would like to thank caribb (Doug from Montreal) for generously allowing the reuse of these images under creative commons license terms.

Timetablist will be dedicating an intermediate period going forward to highlight some of the incredible finds of Flickr user caribb's collection. Timetablist would like to thank caribb (Doug from Montreal) for generously allowing the reuse of these images under creative commons license terms.

Sunday, April 24, 2011

Surely Damascus and Tehran have not for decades been regular waystations on the way to Oz, politically difficult as they have been for some time. Likewise the curious presence of Colombo or even Bahrain--as has been previously discussed on these pages, the dominance of Bahrain and Kuwait as a Gulf stopover in previous decades has largely ceded to the booming trio of Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Doha. In fact, Qantas by-passes the Middle East entirely today, having completely lost out on any traffic to the region from overdominant Emirates.

Equally, Qantas is today only present at London and Frankfurt--is many other European destinations, several of which are here, have been dropped since the 1970s. Really, its only remarkable that travelers accumulated in Athens, Rome or Vienna in significant weekly numbers to support such an Australia-bound service.

Note from the previous post that two lines sprawl out from London, one bound for New York, the other for Bermuda, Nassau, Mexico, and Polynesia.

Timetablist will be dedicating an intermediate period going forward to highlight some of the incredible finds of Flickr user caribb's collection. Timetablist would like to thank caribb (Doug from Montreal) for generously allowing the reuse of these images under creative commons license terms.

This detail from the previous post, part of Flickr user caribb's collection, showing the global reach of Qantas in spring of 1974. In this detail, the dense jumble of routes to east Asia can be seen.

Most of these destinations remain the same today, but are served more directly-- its certainly curious to consider reaching Tokyo from Sydney via Manila or Hong Kong via Port Moresby, a city which Qantas, somewhat surprisingly, does not serve today. Kuala Lumpur, Bali and Colombo are also not part of the Qantas system; Delhi has been switched out in favor of Mumbai.

A greater number of other changes are due to the paradigm-shift in air carriers in Southeast Asia and the South Pacific, with Qantas itself transferring many holiday destinations to its own Jetstar and coming up against southeast-Asian competitors such as Air Asia X. new entrants such as the confusion amalgam of the Virgin Group now dominant participants in nearly every short- medium- and long-haul market, from domestic flights to service to Los Angeles.

The next and final post will examine the European corner of the network.

Timetablist will be dedicating an intermediate period going forward to highlight some of the incredible finds of Flickr user caribb's collection. Timetablist would like to thank caribb (Doug from Montreal) for generously allowing the reuse of these images under creative commons license terms.

Qantas was quite a different operation in these days of the early jet age: aside from a dense weave of antipodean services between Australia and New Zealand, and a web of southeast Asian services, the Australian carrier branched around the globe, with a number of rather curious waystations which aren't on its network today in the Middle East and Europe. These will be examined in more detail in the following two posts.

But surely what is most unusual in the entire system is its secondary round-the-world link: the Australian airline's famous "Fiesta Route." A completely unique routing which began in 1966 with the first of the airline's 747s, spanned the South Pacific at Fiji and Tahiti, then crossed the rest of the ocean and the equator to reach Acapulco, Mexico, hopping on to Mexico City, the wingéd Kangaroo continued eastward to the British colonies at Nassau and then Bermuda, and transversing the Atlantic to finish at London.

The next two posts will examine this item in more detail.

Timetablist will be dedicating an intermediate period going forward to highlight some of the incredible finds of caribb's collection. Timetablist would like to thank caribb (Doug from Montreal) for generously allowing the reuse of these images under creative commons license terms.

The top list shows the services from Gabon to the metropole, a rotation of thrice-weekly flights, all terminating at Charles de Gaulle, but stopping in variously Marseille, Nice or Rome along the way.

The second box lists the northwesterly runs from Libreville, operated with either Fokker F-100 or Boeing B737 jets, once-weekly to Cotonou; twice-weekly to Abidjan via Lagos, extending on Mondays to Dakar; Douala and onward to Lomé on Wednesday; and Lomé-Abidjan on Saturday.

There is also an early morning B747 to Luanda--presumably a continuation of the Paris-Marseille-Libreville flight, with a TAAG Angola Airlines flight number listed. These joint ventures are noted at the bottom of the leaflet, but details on just which carrier's craft ran the service is not fully provided.

It is especially curious that Gabon's second city and petrolhub, Port-Gentil, is absent from the roster, as are other likely destinations such as Brazzaville, Malabo, and Yaounde.

Timetablist will be dedicating an intermediate period going forward to highlight some of the incredible finds of caribb's collection. Timetablist would like to thank caribb (Doug from Montreal) for generously allowing the reuse of these images under creative commons license terms.

The map's loops of pesto-linguini link northeast Asia, mostly via Taipei, and southeast Asia, with two strands stretching south to Perth and Sydney. A unique distant chart is an unusual feature, interesting for navigational purposes, as this was many years before the first frequent flier programs.

Timetablist will be dedicating an intermediate period going forward to highlight some of the incredible finds of caribb's collection. Timetablist would like to thank caribb (Doug from Montreal) for generously allowing the reuse of these images under creative commons license terms.

Timetablist will be dedicating an intermediate period going forward to highlight some of the incredible finds of caribb's collection. Timetablist would like to thank caribb (Doug from Montreal) for generously allowing the reuse of these images under creative commons license terms.

The Gulf is heavily favored-- it is not common to find artifacts from this era showing routes to the 21st century hubs of today: Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Doha; however these are paired with the popular destinations of that contemporary vintage: San'a, Jeddah, and Bahrain.

In its own region, Sudan Airways is startlingly spare: Addis Ababa, Entebbe, Dar Es Salaam, Mogadishu, Djibouti, and other, more distant candidates are absent. Perhaps there was a political explanation for this.

In quite an ironic foreshadowing, Juba, the capital of the newly-independent South Sudan, is show, here as part of the international network, connected to both Khartoum and Nairobi. It is only now, some 33 years later, that Khartoum-Juba flights will cross an international border.

Please see the next post for the contemporary domestic route map.

Timetablist will be dedicating an intermediate period going forward to highlight some of the incredible finds of caribb's collection. Timetablist would like to thank caribb (Doug from Montreal) for generously allowing the reuse of these images under creative commons license terms.

Monday, April 18, 2011

Having just recently featured Nigeria Airways in its vintage glory, it is particularly pleasing to highlight this second gem from the incredible collection of Flickr user caribb. This colorful, elephantine brochure cover reveals an entirely straightforward map of the Nigeria Airways international network inside. What is notable here is firstly the railroad-like West African leg, a spine connecting the Anglophone capitals, with a miniature hub at Monrovia. This service also touches Abidjan and Dakar, from whence the flying pachyderm stretches across the Atlantic to New York.

A second remarkable aspect is the dense web of trans-Saharan routes fanning out from Kano, reaching eight European capitals as well as Beirut, far more service than that ancient city enjoys today, a phenomenon that has been previously discussed. It is not possible to fly non-stop from many of these cities, such as Madrid, to Nigeria at present, and it is curious to contemplate having to travel from Lagos to Brussels, Amsterdam, Frankfurt or Zürich via Kano.

Timetablist will be dedicating an intermediate period going forward to highlight some of the incredible finds of caribb's collection. Timetablist would like to thank Doug from Montreal for allowing the reuse of these images under creative commons.

Sunday, April 17, 2011

One of many gems from the incredible collection of Flickr user caribb, who was not only thoughtful enough to photograph a few treasures from his extensive airline timetable collection, but generous enough to list them on Flickr under a creative commons license, allowing them to be exhibited here.

This gorgeous bichrome timetable insert shows the full extent of the malaysian airline system, MAS, just as it began to spread across three continents to connect European cities via the Middle East with a domestic and regional base, an East Asian arc, and an Antipodean network. As the map helpfully demonstrates, it was possible to stretch across the extent of the system, from Europe through the Gulf, via KL and to southeastern Australia, all aboard Jumbo Boeing Jets.

Timetablist will be dedicating an intermediate period going forward to highlight some of the incredible finds of caribb's collection. Timetablist would like to thank Doug from Montreal for allowing the reuse of these images under creative commons.

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Here is the curious case of LH588: a 7 hour, 15 minute flight on board a wingleted B737-800 of Lufthansa-owned PrivatAir, from Frankfurt Airport to Libreville, Gabon, and then an onward hop of a little over an hour from Libreville to Augostinho Neto International Airport in Pointe-Noire, Congo Republic (which is also served by Air France non-stop from Paris). A seven hour journey aboard a single-isle plane may sound unbearable; but PrivatAir is all business class.

How does a major airline sustain an all-business class narrowbody, trans-equatorial service to two remote, sparsely-populated countries? Petroleum, of course.

Pink was chosen to capture the essence of the fleet of the wingéd elephant's global reach in this delicious timetable from April 1966, sporting a roseate VC-10 flagship on its cover, with the stout pachydermian pegasus at lower left.

Regionally, Nigeria Airways plied a leg southeast to Douala and Leopoldville, and a littoral run west from Lagos, skipping only Conakry to reach Dakar, from whence it lept across the Atlantic to New York.

A northern web branches out from the Sahelian capital of Kano flew to Rome--curious how prominent this city was on the Europe-Africa networks--distance was perhaps a factor. Within Europe, unexpectedly the lines land at Rome, Frankfurt and Barcelona. Somewhat odd choices--perhaps distance was still a consideration. And London, naturally, London. A separate premier line from Lagos to London non-stop, which the map underscores. Abuja, of course, has yet to exist. The inset detail of the domestic network is examined in the next post.

The example featured in this post is another gem of the outstanding collection of Björn Larsson, part of the encyclopedic archive at Timetable Images. Thank you to Larsson and the rest of the Timetable Images team for their work and reproduction courtesies.